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What’s this Select Plus about…?

Select Plus is a perpetual agreement offered by Microsoft with the aim of being more flexible and offer some better license management.

The Select Plus model offers customers a single Unique Customer ID that enables them to avail of aggregate pricing discounts based on the actual total purchase over time.

Your organization can centralize reporting while management of licenses and SA (Software Assurance) benefits is decentralized, and can happen at the affiliate level.

The Select Plus agreement is a perpetual agreement, and does not expire. Microsoft call this an “Evergreen” Agreement.

The Select Plus agreement offers automatic tiered discounts based on your company-wide purchase volume. The single customer ID facilitates tracking of all aggregate purchases, so that pricing is based on the actual purchase. Microsoft have removed the forecast requirement to get discounts. The customer gets a price benefit automatically whenever the next higher price threshold is crossed.

On the initial purchase of SA – Select Plus customers always get a full 36 months of benefits, irrespective of the date of purchase. However, when they renew Software Assurance, proration is used and Software Assurance acquired at different times is synchronized to facilitate annual budgeting cycles.

Select Plus is designed to support mid-sized or larger organizations that don’t necessarily want to standardize all the desktops in the organization, and generally purchase through Select. These customers want the Volume Licensing pricing advantage across the organization and its affiliates, and would like to have the option of adding SA only when they feel that they need it. Some of these organizations may also want to use Select Plus along with an existing Enterprise Agreement to make additional purchases.

Customers who wish to acquire software through a Select Plus agreement can qualify as a new customer with a minimum of 500 points in one product pool.

Customers under an existing Enterprise Agreement, Enterprise Agreement Subscription, Campus Agreement, and School Agreement meet the 500-point minimum requirement by virtue of the program, and automatically qualify.

All other Volume License customers musthave 500 points over the previous 12 months’ time to qualify.

Customers can purchase under single pools. To purchase under multiple pools, they must qualify with 500 minimum points per pool.

As in the Select License, under Select Plus too, price levels are determined by the number of points a customer has earned in each product pool.

In Select Plus there is no forecasting. Additional price levels are applied to the order that achieves the price level and this can happen at any time in the year. The new price levels are applied to all participating affiliates.

A compliance check is done once a year and purchases from the previous 12 months are reviewed; if the purchase minimum for the current level is not met, the customer is moved down a maximum of one pricing level per year.

Points are reviewed annually with Select Plus, while they are reviewed once in three years with Select. The three-year price levels used in Select are divided by three to calculate the annual points.

The organization will attain the next price level for a pool as soon as it meets the corresponding annual point minimums.

Purchases made on an organization’s Select Plus Agreement by registered affiliates are combined and continuously factored into point minimums per pool to achieve the most beneficial price level.

The top 10 reasons why Select Plus makes sense

A single, enterprise-wide contract offers the same pricing level for all business units.

Simple, One-Page affiliate registration makes participation fast and simple for each affiliate or business unit.

The perpetual agreement term keep renewals at the IT budget level rather than the boardroom level, with flexibility to buy as needed.

The option of centralized and decentralized purchasing aligns with how the business works.

Immediate price-level adjustments based on actual purchase volume across the organization help ensure the right price.

Provides a clear view of the entire license portfolio to support asset management (SAM) and reporting.

Software Assurance is available but not required. Get access to full value of benefits like training vouchers and deployment services.

Manage migration from expiring agreements at any pace.

Sign an EA and consolidate other agreements under a Select Plus for better manageability and a better overall price level for volume purchasing.

Stronger support from Large Account Resellers (LARs) for purchasing guidance. Two-tier or direct model available in countries that currently have those models for Select.